Page 27 - THE BOOK BREEZE 1

In my research for this story, I contacted my childhood friend, Victor Manual Ro-
driguez Romero, to ask him what he may remember about the story of Burton
and Taylor and to gain more history about the El Cortez Hotel. Victor’s father,
Juan “Nepo” Rodriguez Merida owned and operated the hotel after his father,
Jose Maria Rodriguez Lujan, built the
hotel in 1959. The Rodriguez family are
descendants of Abelardo Rodriguez
Lujan, who was President of Mexico
from 1932-1934. The story goes that
Richard Burton was in San Felipe for
the month of July in 1970 filming “Raid

on Rommel”, aka “Commando en el De-
sierto.” Having just married for a second
time, Taylor came to San Felipe to spend
time with Burton. In his diary entry, Bur-
ton describes the beauty of the beach,
the “unbearable heat” of the desert and
dining at Reuben’s restaurant. Though
only a handful of pictures of Burton and
Taylor in San Felipe could be found, the story has been researched and told
enough to know that they appeared
to have enjoyed their romantic stay
in our little town. What I find roman-
tic, is that they chose to stay in the
beautiful, iconic El Cortez Hotel. I
can only imagine that they chose
the El Cortez Hotel because of its
refreshing seaside location and
charming Spanish style bungalows,
built after Hurricane Katerina in 1967
damaged the original hotel. The hotel
is now separated into a row of hotels
owned by Rodriguez family members,
has maintained much of its original
aura and though more modern rooms
have been built, the vintage bunga-
lows remain available for rent today.

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